Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/302

 How deathly still is a house in spring when the wind nuzzles the doors, begging to get in. She raised her violet-shadowed eyes reproachfully towards the rattling panes beyond the nimbus of the couch. 'You wouldn't like it, wind,' she said, 'if I should open a window and let you in. Go a long way off, out to sea, or down on the Cape. Concord is not the place for you.' But the wind snuffed like a hound.

The inertia of her body was at the moment too great to allow her to pick up the dropped crocheting or cross the room to the sofa. She yawned again and stretched herself from finger tip to toe-tip, as cats yawn and stretch. Her head sank. She was happy and almost asleep. The wind, the ticking clocks, the hot noises of the fire lulled her. 'Double crochet, seam two and purl two...women knitting antimacassars against the Judgment Day. But it is not now what my fingers do, but my body.'

Sometimes it seemed strange to her that there was a live animal growing within her, something insistent that would eventually want to come into life of its own and would not care if it killed her in the process. She did not believe that she would care very much to-night if it did. She was so hypnotized, so sunk in life, she knew no fear of death. She felt no love for the 'little new soul' which the minister had told her God had entrusted to her, but its presence gave her satisfaction, a sense of well-being. Her life should be its life. The things that had hurt and delighted her should in turn hurt and delight the 'little soul.' And in turn this soul would bear or beget more souls who